Twas a beautiful Saturday here in Montana 2 weeks ago. Thought I would explore a new strip up in the Missouri Breaks called Heller Bottom Ranch. Rather remote but very picturesque spot on the Missouri River. Landed multiple spots on the way up before landing in paradise. Taxi back to park and main tail wheel leaf spring calls it quits. My 170 doesn't have the power to lift the tail so I am stuck. With 1000 foot canyon walls on all sides my best hope on 121.5 is an airliner overhead. Hello anybody home - no reply. Nearest road 15 miles in any direction with nobody probably on the road. Got the Spot locator but no text email capability. Work on the plane a bit and then try the radio again. US Fish and Wildlife supercub looking for wolves says hello. Says he is on the way. While I have my radio off unfortunately he notifies authorities that I have crashed. Eventually he lands and I give him some phone numbers to call. My buddy arrives 2 hours later with Husky spring set. Using lots of lever action we get it back together. Definitely sub optimal. Full power, full flaps, full forward, 90 degree turn and I am out of there. Home as the sun sets. Now the fun begins - calling all the authorities. Search and rescue now knows I am home safe but they notified the FAA and NTSB. Called the FAA and they said an investigator would call Monday and they would tell the NTSB to stand down. FAA on Monday hears my story and wants to know if my buddy is an A&P to which I reply "no". Then I told him it was not even a certified approved part we put on the plane. After describing to him how my A&P would have to ride a horse out to help me he seemed sympathetic. Patiently awaiting the citation in the mail. Tail wheel now officially repaired. Fortunately I got out of there in a timely fashion. Next day 50mph winds on surface above canyon with rain and snow. Might not have a plane today. In the "Breaks" the smallest amount of rain turns it into gumbo the worst mud you will encounter. May not have gotten out for days. I love flying its always an adventure.

Glad it worked out for you! I always worry about that kind of thing...good to have options and know how to use them effectively. Maybe leave out a few details when the Feds are asking next time

Good luck!!!

Old cop rule...

Admit nothing.
Deny everything.
Demand proof.
Make outrageous counter accusations.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:Old cop rule...

Admit nothing.
Deny everything.
Demand proof.
Make outrageous counter accusations.

Gump

+1 on that!

GumpAir wrote:Old cop rule...

Admit nothing.
Deny everything.
Demand proof.
Make outrageous counter accusations.

Gump

What Gump said, along with the Richard Pryor corollary: "Who you gonna believe baby, me or your lyin' eyes???"

Put an L-19 main leaf spring on that thing, or it'll happen again. I hate those stock 170 springs.

The Breaks are a great place to spend a little time, but not in November. If it rains and/or snows, as you said, you aren't going anywhere for a while......maybe a long while. I know of a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks pickup that spent a winter down in the bottoms over east of there one winter......got down in the bottoms in November, spent the night, and a storm hit. Driver got out of there by helicopter a week later.

I hope the FAA doesn't get too twitchy about this one. As you said, it's pretty hard to get a mechanic down there, at least very quick.... Good luck.

MTV

I had the tailwheel spring break on my 170 at Jake's Bar in the Wrangells a few years ago. Just taxiing out for departure minding my own business and Blam skid skid skid stop. My girlfriend's telephone had a signal, but the service only allowed an emergency call, so a couple of people responded and had an IA install a 170 TW spring assembly. They made a run to a salvage yard and had us going with only about a six hour delay. They felt bad charging me $400.00. I definitely haven't found a better value in any product or service since.

MTV or Gump: Have you ever seen a 180 TW spring break? They seem pretty bomb proof, and the tubular arrangement is optimized for reacting torsional loads in addition to pure bending, unlike flat leafs.

I've never seen a C-180/185 break a stinger, but I'm sure they have.

On my current Cessna TW conversion I swap out tailwheel springs every few hundred hours. And I use the Birddog set. I also change attach bolts every annual, and keep tail spring/tailwheel bolt torque at 70 ft/lbs.

That seem to keep stuff tight like it should be. But even so, after time springs start to get a twist to them and sag enough to change the angle on the Scott 3200 castering.

Gump

Sounds like you pulled it off just fine Coyote, got the plane out of there anyway just in time, any static from the Feds should be minor? Experimental here, it never occurred to me that using the wrong spring would be a problem, that's nuts!

Well I am not too concerned about the feds. I am so happy I still have a plane. Gump I had to laugh thinking up outrageous counter accusations sounds like fun. MTV what is different with the L19 spring. Courier I will proudly frame and display the citation in my hangar if it comes.

Oh and Courier I wish I had thought to take a picture of the Husky spring. The angles where way off. The base plate angle of the scott 3200 was about 45 degrees from level. If the tail wheel castored to 180 degrees, in other words facing backward, I dont think it would ever have been able to face forward again without breaking the main leaf spring again. Funny thing though no shimmy on landing.

The broken 170 tailsprings I've seen all broke right where the #2 leaf ends. Don't know if it's true, but I've heard that it's a good idea to take off that #2 spring and bevel the edge where it rides against the main spring. A sharp edge is said to start a stress riser in the main leaf which will be the start to a break-- at the most inopportune time and place, of course! What some people do with the 120/140 series and others is to cut off the main leaf even with the #2 leaf, and run the t/w mounting bolt through both of them as is standard practice on a Pacer or similar. This also has the added benefit of increasing the AOA in the three-point attitude. I don't recall if there's enough of that second leaf showing to make that doable on a 170.

Coyote wrote:Well I am not too concerned about the feds. I am so happy I still have a plane. Gump I had to laugh thinking up outrageous counter accusations sounds like fun. MTV what is different with the L19 spring. Courier I will proudly frame and display the citation in my hangar if it comes.

The L 19 (Bird Dog in Gump's post) main leaf is somewhat thicker than the original 170 leaf. It's enough thicker that you have to remove one of the shorter leaves (I removed the shortest, mostly useless top leaf) to get the stack to fit in the bracket.

It would require a field approval or maybe a brave IA would consider it a "minor". Mine was field approved.

As to the Husky spring set, the Husky is REALLY heavy in the tail, so it needs a pretty skookum spring set......too stiff for a 170. Also, spring arch and the length of the spring makes a big difference.

You can get a L 19 main leaf from Univair....not too spendy.

I went there after I was watching the stock spring as the plane was rolled backwards into a hangar, over a set of rails for the big sliding doors. I couldn't believe how much that stock spring flexed, right at where the spring meets the tailwheel. Plane was going in for annual, and it came out with a L 19 main leaf. Not only is the spring tougher, the angle of the tailwheel is better. It is THE way to go on a 170.

I've had to fly a replacement spring to a friend for his 170 on a remote strip.....he now has a L 19 main spring.

I've never heard of a 180/185 "spring" break. I have seen a tailwheel actually ripped off a couple, but the bolts attaching the wheel to the spring failed, not the spring.

I think you'll be amazed if you go to the L 19 main leaf...tougher and better geometry....what's not to like?

MTV

GumpAir wrote:
Admit nothing.
Deny everything.
Demand proof.
Make outrageous counter accusations..

I will admit to having taken this approach in the past. But sometimes it is better to come clean, such as in this case when there wssn't an accident or even an incident- just a minor breakdown.
Back on 9/11/01, a local guy flew his airplane over to my airport from his airpark home. His own neighbors called the FAA etc to rat him out when they saw him take off. He didn't believe a guy here abut the national airspace system being flat-ass closed, with all airplanes grounded, so he jumped back into his airplane and flew home. The neighbors ratted him out again after he landed. (he's not a popular guy around the airpark)
If he'd have just copped a plea of ignorance, they probably would have let him off with a slap on the wrists. But no- he took the admit nothing/deny everything stance, and ended up getting his ticket suspended for a year.
You gotta know when to say uncle.

Bust something like a tailwheel spring in the middle of nowhere... Easy fix, and a simple "I got stuck, now I'm un-stuck" is probably all the info I would have provided to anybody. If that.

Being a dipshit on the morning of 9-11, totally oblivious to the events that were currently unfolding, and flying in spite of that.... Felony stupid, and lucky he didn't get shot.

Gump

He didn't believe a guy here abut the national airspace system being flat-ass closed, with all airplanes grounded, so he jumped back into his airplane and flew home.

He probably figured if these guys could, so could he.

TAMPA - Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.

The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.

The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.

Scolopax wrote:I had the tailwheel spring break on my 170 at Jake's Bar in the Wrangells a few years ago. Just taxiing out for departure minding my own business and Blam skid skid skid stop. (...)

Hey Scolopax.
Is this your spring I saw at Jake's Bar a couple of years ago?

AKclimber wrote:

Scolopax wrote:I had the tailwheel spring break on my 170 at Jake's Bar in the Wrangells a few years ago. Just taxiing out for departure minding my own business and Blam skid skid skid stop. (...)

Hey Scolopax.
Is this your spring I saw at Jake's Bar a couple of years ago?

Looks just like the one that I broke.

Definitely looks like a 170 spring set